


Exhaustion

by chronicAngel



Series: Leaves in the Summer [22]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Chuunin Exams, Drabble, F/M, Forests, POV Third Person, SasuSaku Week 2018, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-04-01 00:35:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13986666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicAngel/pseuds/chronicAngel
Summary: She plans to stay awake to protect their little family even as every part of her protests.SasuSaku Week 2018 Day 4: Favorite Family Moment





	Exhaustion

It's hardly two hours before Sasuke wakes up the second time, Naruto still sleeping off to the side. She wonders if he hasn't fallen into a coma with all of the chakra he must have used up earlier, but chooses not to say anything, instead scooting on her knees to Sasuke's side and helping him to sit up.

"How are you feeling?" She asks hopefully, but she knows that the answer is some variation of _not good_.

"I'm fine," he says instead, brushing her hand off when she reaches to brush hair out of his eyes like she's been doing nervously since he passed out again. She's had one of them in her arms practically every moment since the fight with Team Dosu. _They were so much stronger than us_...

He glances over at Naruto for hardly a second and then his eyes snap to her face and he sits up so quickly she has to stumble back just so their foreheads don't bump. "How long have I been out?" His voice is almost scarily insistent and she scoots back with the memory of what he did to Zaku still lingering on the edges of her mind. She still hasn't slept even as her eyes have been begging to close for just a few minutes.

"A couple of hours, maybe. That's not important." She's almost started by the insistence in her own voice, but chooses to embrace it, resting a hand on his chest (she's surprised that he lets her) and pushing him to lay back. "You should rest. You both used up a lot of chakra. It's a miracle you can even move."

They both glance over at Naruto. He lays on his back, covered in dirt, but she would swear there were scrapes all over his body earlier that there are no longer any traces of. She's been exhausting herself so much worrying after Sasuke that she feels a pang of guilt in her gut when she looks at him.

He sleeps like a baby. All of his features are soft even as she knows she would be plagued with nightmares in his position. It's one of the many reasons she hasn't slept despite the heavy feeling that's been growing in her eyelids even before she was forced to defend the bodies of her unconscious teammates from three psychopathic genin from Otogakure, aside from the fact that, as earlier, someone needs to protect them.

"Tch. You should wake him up. We don't have forever to get a heaven scroll, and there's no way I'm failing this exam because he wanted beauty sleep."

She glares at him. "You should be more considerate, Sasuke-kun. Like I said, you _both_ used up a lot of chakra." She shuffles closer to Naruto now, brushing thick strands of blond hair away from his forehead and tucking it into his forehead protector. She feels responsible for him-- for both of them, really, but the feeling is different. With Sasuke, it comes naturally to her the way she's imagined love is always supposed to. When he is in danger (or when he's on the edge of losing himself), her immediate instinct is to pull him back. With Naruto, she's not sure whether to protect him or throttle him herself. She imagines it is a lot like having a younger brother.

He scoffs, but doesn't say anything else, instead laying back down. She wonders if the wounds he sustained in their fight with Orochimaru are bothering him, or if the curse mark has chased away any traces of pain from before then. _It took so much out of him, though_... One hand still buried in Naruto's hair, she scoots a final time to place herself between the two boys, pulling Sasuke's head into her lap and burying the fingers of her free hand into his hair. He pretends to be asleep well enough that she would fall for it if he hadn't tensed immediately at her touch, but she takes it as a positive sign when he doesn't pull away from her afterward. It's not long before his breathing relaxes, falling into the same steady rhythm she has grown to associate with him when he is sleeping.

She plans to stay awake to protect their little family even as every part of her protests. The boys are both nursing serious injuries and someone needs to hold off an enemy for as long as possible if someone comes after them. Though they would normally take a watch system, or else Kakashi-sensei would watch after the three of them all night while saying he was only going to take the first watch, she is the only one who isn't suffering from chakra depletion. Still, at some point she notices her whole body sagging forward (probably the point when her forehead presses into Sasuke's shoulder and she's too tired to pull herself back even when she finds herself embarrassed) and she decides that it can't hurt to close her eyes for a few minutes. (It's not a few minutes though. She sleeps for hours, tucked between the warmth of her boys.)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just gonna cheat on all of these prompts.


End file.
